Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet travel the rocky 'Revolutionary Road'

by
Mike Scott, Movie writer, The Times-Picayune

Thursday January 15, 2009, 4:00 PM

Kate Winslet won a Golden Globe for her performance in 'Revolutionary Road,' in which she co-stars with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Meet Frank and April Wheeler, a regular couple in 1955 suburban America. They've got a swell house in a swell neighborhood. They've got two swell kids, he's got a swell job.

And they're miserable.

Frank and April had dreams once, and in "Revolutionary Road" -- Sam Mendes' big-screen retelling of Richard Yates' dark, thoughtful novel -- they've come to realize that those dreams have been replaced by the "delusion" of suburban happiness.

Unfortunately, as they learn, it's much more difficult to reclaim a dream than it is to shelve it, as Mendes makes clear in his difficult, but consistently engaging, drama, which opens Friday (Jan. 16, 2009) in New Orleans.

Even if the accolades being heaped upon his film feel a touch overstated -- most notably for lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio, whose performance feels too much like acting to be believable, and for the film's general tendency toward histrionics -- "Revolutionary Road" is a satisfying thinker.

Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio discover that the American dream isn't enough in 'Revolutionary Road.'

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD3 stars, out of 4

Plot: A 1950s couple achieves the American dream, only to wonder if that's really what they wanted.

What works: It's a nicely assembled and moving piece bound to prompt many movie-goers to take stock.

What doesn't: Many of the performances, particularly that of Leonardo DiCaprio, feel too much like acting.

Once the wheels start spinning, however, honest movie-goers might uncover a personal truth as unsettling as the film's tragic third act. After all, taking an inventory of one's life is exactly what landed Frank (DiCaprio) and April (Kate Winslet, in a Golden Globe-winning role) in so much trouble.

Reflection for her means realizing she probably will never become a professional actress. For him, it means realizing he has become a carbon copy of his office-worker father. In both cases, they're horrified at what they see -- a drone and a clone -- and the Wheelers' lives come to a screeching halt.

Their solution: Chuck it all and move to Paris, where they can break their conformist, consumerist bonds and start over.

All their cardigan-wearing neighbors, of course, think they're nuts. All except for one -- but he's also certifiably insane (and played magnificently by Michael Shannon, in the film's best performance).

So who is crazy?

Given the themes at work, it's hard not to think of "Revolutionary Road" as a companion to Mendes' 1999 Oscar-winning debut, "American Beauty." The more cynical might see it as mere second-verse-same-as-the-first repetition. (Is anyone else beginning to think the English director doesn't much care for picket fences and ligustrums?)

There's some merit there.

Unlike that earlier film, "Revolutionary Road" is set in the pervasive homogeneity of the 1950s, an era in which expressions of individuality didn't go much beyond varying the width of one's hat band. (The wonderful cinematographer Roger Deakins does a beautiful job of striking that note, with a train-station sequence recalling Charlie Chaplin's sheep-down-the-chute scene in 1936's "Modern Times.")

Still, "Revolutionary Road" isn't a screed against that decade. Like "American Beauty, " it's a timeless statement about the causticity of conformity.

Given that timelessness, it's an intriguing tale that, depending on the age of the audience, functions equally well as a cautionary tale as it does a therapy session.